16 TASMANIAN EUCALYPTS, 



lands. It has a white, smooth baxk from near base, and 

 is usually of a spreading, drooping habit. On the Alma 

 Tiers this is very j^ronounced; the branches are slender, 

 long, and pendulous. About Chudleigh and elsewhere, 

 when met with in forests, the tree is erect. The mature 

 leaves are long, lanceolate, slightly unequal, stalked, and 

 alternate, but the venation is distinct from that of any 

 other Tasmanian tree, except Moiintahv Ash : the veins 

 are few, and run almost parallel with the midrib. From 

 Mount (I in Axh, where there may be doubt in the venation, 

 a distinction may always be made hj ^\ eepnuj Gum having 

 the flower stalks round instead of flat, the fruit nearly 

 hemispheric instead of pyriform, and the bark being de- 

 ciduous and smooth. The juvenile leaves are very like 

 those of Gum-topped . 



Blue Gum (Eiic. glohulus, Lab.). — In the typical form 

 the main stem is erect and strongly pronounced. Bark 

 shed in long ribands. Leaves alternate, stalked distinctly 

 unecpial. Juvenile leaves opposite, sessile, very broad, 

 shoots sqviarei. Flowers large, single in the leaf-axils, 

 rarely three; fruit large, two tO' three centimetres diamet- 

 ler. As a. rule the tree varies but little. There is a 

 form growing near the sea at the foot of the hills at the 

 entrance to Port Arthur, with pale, more equal-sided 

 loaves, the flowers in threes, and only half the size of the 

 type, the valves of the fruit more sunk than in hybrids 

 v/ith White (htm. This seems to approach Eur. alohiilus 

 as it gro-ws in Gippsland. 



White Gum, also Manna Gum (Etic. viiuinali-<, Lah.). — 

 UsuaJlv a small tree, but in favourable localities exceed- 

 ing 100ft. Bark scaly, from deciduous, except at the extreme 

 base, to persistent to the branches. Leaves verv variable 

 in size, running from under three inches to about one foot, 

 sometimes narrow, almost linear, equal-sided to broad 

 falcate, almost indistinguishable from those of Blue, Gum. 

 Juvenile leaves usually oblong, with a constricting base, 

 opposite, sessile, som.etimes broadly heart-shaped. In 

 rare instances flowers may appear in the axils of the juve- 

 nile leaves.. The flowers are always in threes. The 

 operculum is dome-shaped to conic, about as long as the 

 tube. Fruit nearly globose, with very protruding valves, 

 usuallv about 6 mm. diameter. 



Though the foliage is so variable the species can 

 always be clearly made out amongst Tasmanian plants by 

 the large operculum and characteristic globose fruit always 

 in threes. The only other gum with such a fruit is 

 CondleharJc. 



